Conventional air conditioning systems generally comprise a compressor, a condenser coil, a condenser fan for passing air through the condenser coil, a flow restriction device, an evaporator coil, and an evaporator blower for passing air through the evaporator coil. The condenser coil and the evaporator coil are each designed as heat exchangers with internal tubing for carrying refrigerant. Further, evaporator coils and condenser coils sometimes comprise a plurality of fins disposed along a length of the internal tubing so that the internal tubing passes through holes formed in the adjacent plate fins.
The compressor operates to compress refrigerant into a hot and high pressure gas, which is passed through the internal tubing of the condenser coil. As the refrigerant is passed through the condenser coil, the condenser fan operates to pass ambient air across the condenser coil, thereby removing heat from the refrigerant and condensing the refrigerant into liquid form. The liquid refrigerant passes through a flow restriction device, which causes the refrigerant to transform into a colder and lower pressure liquid/gas mixture that proceeds to the evaporator. As the mixture is passed through the evaporator coil, the evaporator blower forces ambient air across the evaporator coil, thereby providing a cooling and dehumidifying effect to the ambient air, which is then distributed to the space to be temperature controlled.
In some applications, heat exchangers (i.e., evaporator or condenser coils) comprise a plurality of fins that are arranged so that adjacent fins are substantially parallel to each other and offset by a fin pitch distance, and a plurality of refrigerant tubes disposed generally orthogonally to the plurality of fins. Most generally, a fin may be described as a thin plate constructed of metal or other materials suitable for conducting heat and comprising a series of holes formed therein that are suitable for receiving refrigerant tubing therethrough. A plurality of fins comprising substantially similar hole patterns may be arranged in a stack, in some embodiments with adjacent fins equally offset by the fin pitch distance, so that refrigerant tubes may each be received through corresponding holes in the plurality of fins. In other words, each refrigerant tube may be inserted substantially orthogonally through corresponding holes in the stack of fins so that the fins are disposed along the refrigerant tubing, thereby forming what may be referred to as a slab of the heat exchanger.